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FDU PRESS
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| Scholarly Review |
 | Shakespeare and the History of Soliloquies
ISBN# 0838639712
Reviewed by: Robert C. Evans, Auburn University Montgomery
Comparative Drama |
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More than once while reading James Hirshs new book I was reminded of previous readings of Aristotles Poetics. I mean this comparison as the highest possible compliment, for Hirsh, like Aristotle, writes with absolute clarity, splendid logic, and superb analytical vigor. As his argument unfolds step by deliberate step, he helps us see more clearly not only matters we thought we already knew but also much that, until now, had previously seemed only vague or even unsuspected. Like Aristotle, Hirsh is a master of deducing every last implication from a seemingly simple premise. Like Aristotle, he uses inductive as well as deductive logic, showing himself deeply familiar with the practical history of his subject even as he charts the necessary philosophical and esthetic consequences of the facts he uncovers. Like Aristotle, he circles back upon himself again and again, reminding us of where we have been and then just as patiently leading us in some unforeseen directiona direction which, in retrospect, always makes perfectly logical sense. Like the Poetics this book is obviously the product of years of serious study and deep reflection, and like the Poetics, it is a book that fundamentally alters ones view of the intellectual landscape it surveys. It is, in short, an essential book on a major topica book that any true student of Shakespeare (or indeed of Western drama) will need and want to have close by. Even those who disagree with some of Hirshs claims (particularly his most startling claimabout the familiar "To be, or not to be" soliloquy in Hamlet) will need to give his arguments the same kind of careful consideration already given them by Hirsh himself.
In an academic world awash in muddy jargon, Hirsh writes with complete lucidity of phrase and thought. His approach, stylistically and philosophically, is literally no nonsense: not a word in this book fails to perform its intended task of clear communication. Because of this lucid style, Hirshs book will still seem fresh fifty or a hundred years from now; it will not (like many writings presently considered "au courant") seem quaint or curiously old-fashioned. His is a book that can be recommended as easily to an intelligent undergraduate as to a committed grad student or serious general reader. It is a model of clarity not only in diction but also in scholarship and argumentation. It traces the history of Western drama from the Greeks to the present without ever leaving a reader wondering what is meant or why Hirsh thinks as he does. Anyone who disagrees with this book will at least know precisely what Hirsh means and how he arrives at his exact conclusions.
Typical of Hirshs style of argument and phrasing are these sentences from his introduction:
I have not discovered any evidence that any soliloquy in any European play before the middle of the seventeenth century was designed as an interior monologue or was perceived as one by playgoers. Thus, before the middle of the seventeenth century there were only two kinds of soliloquies, audience address and self-address, both of which represented speeches by characters. The history of soliloquies until the end of the seventeenth century was a history of the alternation between these two as the dominant convention. (18).
These, obviously, are bold claims: even one counterinstance would falsify Hirshs sweeping generalizations (although it would not detract from the general importance of his assertions if he is right simply in the aggregate). Hirsh, though, is a writer who is stimulating partly because he is so willing to make such grand claims; he seems not to fear disagreement and seems, in fact, positively to relish honest intellectual debate. One senses throughout this study that Hirsh, although confident in his own beliefs, would actually welcome attempts to challenge or qualify them. This is an "old-fashioned" book in the best senses of the term, since it seems to assume that investigation, conversation, and even disagreement can eventually lead to truth, and that truth is the ultimate goal of any rational enterprise.
The first part of Hirshs book consists of an effort to justify the bold claims made in the sentences quoted above. Hirsh surveys the history of soliloquies from the Greeks to the present day, quoting and discussing many example to support his assertion that in "ancient Greek tragedy and Old Comedy, the dominant form of soliloquy was audience address. In Menanders comedies and Roman farce the dominant form was self-address. In medieval drama, the pendulum swung back to audience address. During the course of the sixteenth century, the pendulum gradually swung back in the other direction. By the late sixteenth century the occurrence of audience address was severely limited, and self-address became pervasive" (83). Such self-address, however, did not (Hirsh claims) provide direct, unmediated access to the absolutely "true" inner thoughts of a character; this kind of access would only be provided in drama postdating Shakespearesdrama that arose at the end of the seventeenth century. The implications of this claim are so important to Hirshs book that it seems worth quoting him at length as he lays out his general case:
Just as the late Renaissance employment of self-addressed speeches to dramatize the issue of "privacy" can be distinguished from the medieval employment of audience-address soliloquies to dramatize "communalism," it can also be distinguished from the subsequent dramatization of "interiority" in the form of interior monologues that began to appear in Western drama only in the late seventeenth century. The evidence has shown that late Renaissance playwrights restricted themselves to other dramatizations of outward behavior, which included self-addressed speeches. Real human beings do not have direct access to one anothers minds, and Renaissance playwrights did not give playgoers access to the hypothetical minds of characters. In this respect, the relationship of a playgoer to characters was similar to her relationships to her fellow human beings. Soliloquies in late Renaissance drama did not provide infallible access to the innermost thoughts of characters. (116)
In the next three chapterschapters that are the heart of the bookHirsh lays out the implications of these claims for the proper understanding of Shakespearean drama, including the famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet. He begins with typical boldness, stating that he has "not encountered any evidence of any sort that any soliloquy in any work written by Shakespeare represented an interior monologue" (119). He then offers every conceivable kind of evidence to support this claim, in the process providing many insights into the different kinds of soliloquies employed by Shakespeare and into the conventions that governed their employment. Numerous plays and poems are surveyed, and many valuable local observations are made about them. Hirshs book provides numerous glimpses into how the plays must actually have been performed during the years when Shakespeare lived and wrote; one result is a keener appreciation of the "dramatic" potentiality and impact of many "familiar" episodes. Another result is a deeper appreciation of the complicated skills of the actors who brought the plays to life. At one point, for instance, Hirsh summarizes by claiming that the members of Shakespeares company must have been adept at conveyingby means of tone of voice, facial expression, gesture, blocking, body language, and so forthdifferences among five kinds of speeches and transitions among them:
1) Those the character directs at the other character or all the other characters onstage
2) Those directed at some characters but guarded from the hearing of other characters
3) Those guarded from the hearing of all characters onstage
4) Those spoken by a character who is unaware of the presence of other characters
5) Those spoken by a character who becomes oblivious of the presence of other characters (157)
As Hirsh explores the various possible permutations of these and other aspects of Shakespeares dramaturgy, one becomes highly aware of the artistry employed both by the author and the actors, and one even comes to a better appreciation of the intelligence demanded of the audience. "Because a soliloquy in a work by Shakespeare is a form of outward behavior rather than a transparent window into a characters soul," Hirsh notes, "it requires the same sort of imaginative effort on the part of the playgoer or reader as any other example of a characters behavior. This imaginative effort is similar to the effort we make when we try to figure out what is going on in another real persons mind" (184). Hirsh continues: "If the purpose of soliloquies were to reveal with absolute reliability the essence of a character, it would follow that the more the character spoke in soliloquy, the more clearly and fully that essence would be revealed. But the opposite may be closer to the truth" (188)and he cites Iago and Hamlet as instances of characters who become, if anything, even more mysterious the more they seem to explain themselves.
The primary test case of this hypothesis about Renaissance soliloquies is Hamlets "To be, or not to be" speech, which Hirsh rightly calls perhaps the most famous soliloquy in the whole history of Western drama. In his typical painstaking fashion, Hirsh offers multiple reasons for thinking that the speech is a "feigned soliloquy." In other words, Hamlet knows he is being overheard and is performing for Claudius and Polonius, not expressing his own deepest, most private emotions. Hirsh is fully aware that his interpretation flies in the face of critical tradition and modern performance history, but he makes a highly persuasive case for thinking that his explanation is "the only explanation of what happens in the episode that makes sense" (237). His chapter on this topic will probably be excerpted in critical anthologies for decades to come, not only because it stakes out such a radically uncompromising position but also because it is a model of how to marshal evidence to support a controversial proposition. If all critical writing were this clear in logic and style, literary criticism might have a higher standing among the academic disciplines than it tends to have today. Whether or not one finally accepts Hirshs claims, one has to admire the way he not only supports them but anticipates and answers possible objections. He has thrown down a gauntlet that all subsequent editors and commentators on the play will ignore at their own peril.
Hirshs next chapter outlines how and why the "dominant conventions" for using soliloquies changed in the late seventeenth century and thereafter. In the process, he makes a convincing case that Renaissance practice was, in many ways, more philosophically sophisticated and more aesthetically complex than later tendencies. Hirsh regards the twentieth century as an era in which no dominant convention prevailed and in which drama, to some degree, suffered as a result. Returning to his emphasis on Shakespeare, Hirsh next shows how anachronistic assumptions about soliloquies came to prevail in post-Renaissance performances and how those assumptions still dominate in the modern theater. In the process of making this case, he provides a very helpful survey of modern commentary on Shakespearean soliloquies and of modern stagings and editorial practices. In his final chapter, he returns once more to the "To be or not to be" speech, showing how that speech, in particular, has been affected by post-Renaissance distortions, both onstage and on the printed page. Once again Hirsh proves relentless, not only in laying out his own arguments but in anticipating, and shooting down, possible objections.
It is hard to image a reader who will not be stimulated, in some way, by an encounter with this book. Those skeptical of Hirshs arguments about the "To be, or not to be" speech will (one hopes) be stimulated to try to develop persuasive counterarguments. Those suspicious of his sweeping historical claims will (one hopes) be stimulated to try to prove him wrong. Those looking for models of lucid academic writing will (one hopes) be stimulated to imitate Hirshs style and methods. The one response it is hard to imagine this book provoking is indifference. It is an important volumecertainly one of the best this reviewer has encountered in many years.
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